How to Sell a Hoarder House

We cover the issues one might encounter selling a hoarder house and how to overcome those challenges.

According to RisMedia, 2% to 5% of the US population are considered hoarders. This makes it more common than you might think. Yet, no less damaging.

Trying to rid themselves of masses amounts of clutter can be stressful, hoarders are often indecisive and emotionally paralyzed at the prospect of doing so. Even at the risk of losing everything, including their homes, and the health of their families, and their own.

Eventually, hoarder homes must be sold. This can just be a part of life, and needing to relocate, at the passing down of an estate, or due to local laws and condemnation of the property, and legal orders to vacate.

What Are The Issues With Selling A Hoarder House?

While there may often be no choice but to sell a hoarder house, except to allow it to be seized in foreclosure, that doesn’t mean it will be easy.

Selling is definitely preferable to just allowing a property to be taken away, and the owner still potentially owing all debts that were attached to it, but there can be challenges.

Emotional Distress

Trying to sell a home like this can be stressful for the hoarder, and family members. If it is your home, it can be smart to enroll the help of a family member to help you through it. If you are helping a family member who is a hoarder, your job is to both be there to empathize, yet help them get through it, and swiftly.

You are helping them by achieving a sale. They may not be appreciative during the process, but can be very grateful afterwards. It can take some tough love. Stick it out.

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Logistical Headaches

Selling a hoarder home, or even preparing one for sale can be a logistical challenge. Even if you live locally to the property and do not have to deal with travel and expenses, it can mean time out of work, and a lot of time in coordination. Even if you can afford to spend weekend and after weekend, and week after week dealing with it, it may well cost you in your other relationships and responsibilities.

What do you do with all the stuff? You may need to coordinate with cleaners, charities, waste disposal firms, the city, and agents and potential buyers. It can be a full-time job.

Sifting Through the Stuff

Whether the hoarder themselves is helping you or not, you’ll typically be tempted to sift through as much as possible. You’d think there may be something of value there. Often there may not be much, given age of the belongings, and certainly in contrast with the cost of losing the property. Still, you may want to look out for paperwork which may have some meaning, or donate many items to nonprofits which can put them to use. If they are safe.

If you’ve ever moved, or tried to do a deep clean and organizing of your own home, you know that the job can notoriously grow larger and larger as you dig in. What looks manageable can turn into a massive undertaking, that just keeps becoming a larger burden as you dig deeper. All while the clock is ticking away, expenses are rising, and the risk of loss grows.

Hiring Cleaners & Contractors

In many hoarding house situations, you may required to bring in professional biohazard level services, similar to those used after a crime scene investigation. This is neither cheap, fast, or simple. Though there can be serious healthcare concerns and dangers lurking in homes with lots of clutter.

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Once the property is completely cleared out, and made safe (if possible), then you’ll typically need to begin bringing in contractors and inspectors to assess the situation, provide quotes on repairs, and begin laying out a scope of work and timeline. This may be a lengthy process, though code enforcement fines and violation penalties can add up by the day. Sometimes this is as high as $1,000 per day.

The Complexity of a Sale

The common method of finding a real estate agent, listing a home for sale, and inviting potential buyers for viewings and to do their own inspections is complex enough without a hoarding situation. If the home hasn’t yet been cleared and declared safe, it may not only be visually unappealing, but a health and safety hazard. You may not be permitted to bring people into the home at all.

You can imagine the challenge that presents in trying to sell.

Even if you can bring agents and buyers in, if the hoarder is still in the picture, they can be a major roadblock. It is in their best interest, but they can push back against visitors, be offended by comments, or simply find excuses to delay or back out of a contract during the process which can take months.

In the case of a probate sale there can be extra privacy concerns too. You don’t want photos of the home all over the internet for eternity, of for that situation to be the lasting final memory the world has of them.

How to Easily Sell a Hoarder House

Fortunately, there is an alternative.

By working with an investor-buyer, many of the challenges of selling a hoarder house can be overcome.

Companies that buy houses specialize in these types of properties are very familiar with the legal and safety challenges. They have sound systems for working through the process, and making it more palatable to hoarders and their family members, and more profitable too.

As experienced investors we are not deterred by the condition of the property. We will buy it just as-is. You don’t need to get bogged down in hoarder house cleanup, clear code violations, or deal with all the expense, or making repairs.

The best part? You don’t even have to clear out belongings.

We can have our experts handle that. They go in with care. Can help sort items, and handle the logistics of boxing and shipping out items to family members, charities, and to the dump. We can work directly with your family attorneys if needed, and take the stress out of it.

We Now Buy Houses Nationwide

Lastly, we can close in just a matter of days, relieving you and your loved ones of a great deal of stress, legal threats, and mounting financial losses. That can put more money in your pocket, and allow you to get on with working toward, and enjoying a brighter future.

Call us at 877-210-6460 or fill out the form below to get started. We now buy houses nationwide and can make the process of selling a hoarder house extremely easy.

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